And As The Candles Are Lit
by Nautilus
Summary: Short vignette of Hermione as she sits, contemplating the ghosts of her past.


Summary: Vignette of Hermione Granger's thoughts some time in the future as she sits in a deserted classroom… and who is that man she is thinking of? House points if you guess… it's not that hard, really. 

Author's Note: Um… this was supposed to be a prologue of a long story, but I grew lazy and chose to write a nice pointless PWP instead. Sooo… I was left with the prologue. And I quite like this prologue… so here it is for your enjoyment. Maybe I shall finish the story in the future?? Who knows… 

Rating: G 

AND AS THE CANDLES ARE LIT   
By: Nautilus 

Dusk. The dying embers of sunlight are flickering through the open windows of the deserted potions classroom, and Hermione Granger knows it is time. 

The routine is something of a second nature now, having been done repeatedly night after night for years on end. She checks off the last grade on the student papers she has been reviewing, puts aside her ballpoint pen, and reaches for the tiny box of matches on the corner of her desk. 

Her hand comes in contact with the cool, papery texture of the box and suddenly she feels a small falling sensation in her stomach and it is as if she has been taken back again; the classroom changes before her eyes, darkens, glows. 

She can almost see him sitting there on the towering lecture podium that is now gone, immersed inside the miles of literature before him, absently dropping the pack of matches into her hand without so much as glancing up from his work. 

And she can feel the warmth of his rough, tapered fingertips as they brush her palm, softly like the evening winds... 

_No._

Hermione shakes her head. She must not ever forget, but she cannot desperately cling to the past as if there is no future. _Or else the past would ruin me,_ she thinks, sliding the matchbox open and drawing out a thin, green-tipped match. _I'm living in the present now. The past is over. All of this is over. Don't delve on it too much._

But she cannot help herself as she strikes the match head upon the sandpapery side of the box, deftly sparking the green drop and igniting it into a warm, lightly dancing yellow flame. Her memories come to life as the ritual begins. 

Hermione leans forward on the desk, holding the match with two fingers in front of her, and reverently touches the fire to the wick of the Eternal Candle resting in its rusty, elaborate steel holder, and the wick blooms into a reddish glow, flooding the expanse of her desk with its warm, brooding light. 

She instinctively blows on the spent match, sending up a thin, curling wisp of smoke, and tosses it to the side where it lands silently in the trash bin amidst all of the other blackened matches. 

She hears his throaty voice in her ear, "Miss Granger, will you please _check_ to see if the match is completely out before tossing it away? I do not wish for you to destroy my classroom, " and she nearly turns around, half expecting to see him shadowing over her, glaring at her disapprovingly with his emerald-brown eyes. 

Hermione bites her lip, focusing all her attention onto the burning Eternal Candle. Turning around would be foolish, she knows. All she would see is an empty classroom, empty tables and chairs and little metal cauldrons and bookshelves lined with pickled things in jars. All she would see are nighttime shadows and floating memories. 

"Merlin's bones, Hermione. Why haven't you installed electric lighting in your classroom like the rest of the professors?" Dumbledore is saying. "That candle of his is not sufficient enough to-" 

"It not just a candle," she snaps brusquely. "Will all due respect, Headmaster, but I wish you would refer to his things with a little more courtesy." 

And Dumbledore regards Hermione sadly with his compassionate blue gaze before receding into the smoky recesses of her reverie, and Hermione feels the bitter sting of tears at her eyes. 

Damn it, she's going to cry. Again. 

She tries to lose herself in the lustrous depths of the Eternal Candle, wishing desperately it would burn away the emotions haunting her, emotions undiminished throughout the years by whatever amount of forgetting she has tried to do. But all she can see is his face. 

Funny, it's only now that she thinks he's physically beautiful, now as she stares like a lost child into the flames. She sees him as if he is a memory from yesterday, and she lets her mind roam over his features, ruminating, caressing over each one. His wild black hair, his dark eyes, his proud nose, his sensual mouth. 

His mouth, especially, Hermione lingers on, for it was the place where his most stinging insults issued forth, and yet… she touches her own lips with trembling fingers, remembering. His mouth was gentle there. 

The feeling sends an aching stab straight to her heart like a plunging knife, and Hermione cannot hold back the tears anymore and she lets them splash like crystal raindrops onto the papers below her, seeing the light of the Eternal Candle gleaming in each descending orb. 

_Why must I do this to myself?_ she thinks helplessly. _Why must I light the candle every night, cry myself to sleep?_

But the answer is always there for her and the answer is what keeps her from dying: the candle is what keeps _him_ alive. 

Finis. 

Another Author's Note: Okay. That's it. I dunno. Hehe… Review if you want. 


End file.
